(CNN) - Its hard to believe, but one in seven Americans  15% of the country  now need government-provided food stamps simply to survive.

The new numbers just came out from the United States Department of Agriculture, which administers whats officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Nearly 46 million Americans receive food stamps out of a population of some 311 million people. Thats the highest number on record.

The continued high unemployment and the weak U.S. economy have contributed to the explosive growth of the food stamp program  with no end in sight to the monthly increases.

Heres some context:
- In October 2007, some 27 million Americans were on food stamps.
- A year later, October 2008, the number had reached nearly 31 million.
- By October 2009, the number was approaching more than 37 million.
- Last October saw the program increase to 43 million.
- By the end of May, 45,753,078 Americans were dependent on food stamps.

So how much money in food stamps do they get?
- An eligible individual gets $200 a month in food stamps  in the form of a debit card that can be used at supermarkets and stores to buy authorized food.
- A two-person household gets $367 a month.
- A three-person household gets $526 a month.
- And a four-person household gets $668 a month.

Thats certainly not a lot of money to purchase food for adults and children, but thats what so many American families have to live on. Many of them simply dont have any other money.

By the way, the just-approved first round of nearly $1 trillion in debt ceiling spending cuts over the next 10 years exempted any cuts in the food stamps program.

Funny, all I see is some statistics about food stamps. If hunger is growing at some sort of staggering rate why doesn't the article actually talk about that, instead of going on about food stamps and how one idiot that spends $500 on his shoes cannot imagine surviving on food stamps?

People havin' a tough time keepin' food on the table...One in Seven US Households Struggles to Afford FoodSeptember 07, 2011 - More than 17 million American households had trouble affording adequate food in 2010, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

That's basically unchanged from 2009, but up sharply from 13 million in 2007. "This report today underscores what we know: that household food insecurity remains a serious problem in the United States," says USDA Under Secretary Kevin Concannon. The USDA report shows the lingering effects of a bad economy. More people have struggled to afford adequate food ever since the economy crashed in late 2007. About one in ten households had trouble affording food that year. In 2008, that figure went up to one in seven. The new report shows it has stayed there ever since.

"Slow-moving disaster"

"This is a disaster. It's a slow-moving disaster," says Dave Krepcho, head of the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, which provides food for 3.5 million people in six Florida counties. Krepcho knows about disasters. When hurricanes hit the state -- as they do fairly often -- Second Harvest helps distribute food to people in need. Four hurricanes struck Florida in 2004. But those were short-term events. "For the past two years," he says, "our monthly distribution exceeds...our disaster relief after four hurricanes criss-crossed the state. Every single month is beyond that." One relative bright spot in the USDA report is that the number of households in the most which someone actually went hungry declined slightly last year, from 6.8 million to 6.4 million.

Private sector steps up

Donations from the private sector have helped take food banks take on some of the extra burden, says spokesman Ross Fraser with the Feeding America national network of food banks. "Corporate America has really stepped forward and has helped us both with food and with funds," he says. Major supermarket chains, big retailers and food manufacturers have made big donations in the last few years, according to Fraser, and farm groups contributed 270 million kilograms of fresh produce in the last year alone. "For a hunger relief organization to be able to provide fresh produce to low-income Americans for whom produce is often out of reach financially has been tremendously helpful," he adds.

People havin' a tough time keepin' food on the table... One in Seven US Households Struggles to Afford FoodSeptember 07, 2011 - More than 17 million American households had trouble affording adequate food in 2010, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture....

(CNN) - Its hard to believe, but one in seven Americans  15% of the country  now need government-provided food stamps simply to survive....

Click to expand...

The only thing that's hard to believe is America has 43 million people who'd rather starve to death than give up their color tv set, dvd player, car, microwave, cable/satellite. Then again may be so, they'd rather keep that stuff than get off food stamps.

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